With their AR by Ansmann Racing line of racing chassis Ansmann Racing from Germany tries to step up from their image of doing "only" ready-to-run cars but also proper racing machines. Their contender for the 1/8 scale electric buggy class is called X8e and put the kit buggy through its paces.

The X8e features a very slim chassis design with centralised weight distribution for an agile handling and best jumping characteristics. The 1/8 scale buggy adapts the chassis layout of many 1/10 scale 4WD buggies with front mounted motor, steering servo and receiver while the bulky batteries rest in the rear with the large but somewhat light speed controller being put in the second floor.

The 550 to 700-size motor securely rests on a sliding motor mount machined from 6061 aluminium. The countersunk holes accept both 3mm and 4mm motor mount screws but are optimised for 4mm fasteners which isn't a bad thing given the weight of 1/8 scale electric brushless motors. The plastic parts you see above support the motor and take away some stress from the motor holder.

The three gear differentials feature lightened outdrives to reduce the rotating masses with spiral-cut crown and pinion gears are used on the front and rear diff. The central diff's main gear is also cut from steel as are the crown gears meaning a full-metal drivetrain compared to some companies that use plastic main gears to lower the weight and also reduce noise levels. Anyway the true cut of the supplied 14T pinion gear and 44T main gear make for a relatively low drive noise so we did not miss a plastic main gear.

The remainder of the chassis set-up is pretty much 1/8 scale standard with tough plastic wishbones that are sandwiched between plastic and aluminium suspension holders and that are equipped with 2.8mm anti-roll bars. Part of the suspension are also 18mm big bore oil-filled shock absorbers with threaded aluminium bodies, black anodised caps and medium hard springs.The shocks are mounted to milled 5mm front and rear T6 6061 aluminium shock towers that feature different holes for the camber links to adjust the roll-centre of the front and rear suspension.